Mädchen am Kreuz (Woman on the Cross). 1929. Directed by Jacob Fleck, Louise Fleck [also known as Luise]

Mädchen am Kreuz (Woman on the Cross). 1929. Germany. Directed by Jacob Fleck, Louise Fleck [also known as Luise]. Written by Ludwig Fritsch, Marie-Louise Droop [uncredited]. Produced by Liddy Hegewald. With Evelyn Holt, Valerie Boothby, Wolfgang Zilzer, Fritz Odemar. Digital restoration courtesy Filmarchiv Austria. DCP. German intertitles; English subtitles. 77 min.

Directed by Austrian husband-and-wife filmmaking team Jacob and Louise Fleck, the German drama Mädchen am Kreuz centers on a bookseller (Fritz Odemar) and his daughter (Evelyn Holt), a young student with a bright life and future who suffers tragically after she is raped by a local man (Wolfgang Zilzer). The Flecks’ compact film presents both beautiful, celebratory moments and dark, tragic scenes with an effective, and affecting, touch. Before marrying Jacob and moving to Germany in 1924, Louise worked with him in Austria-Hungary, along with her first husband, Anton Kolm. There, she directed and wrote numerous films and cofounded several production companies in Vienna. Louise’s career in Germany ended in the 1930s; due to Jacob being Jewish, the couple was briefly interned at Dachau and Buchenwald in 1938, before escaping to Shanghai, where they made several more films. (They returned to Vienna in the 1940s.) Digitized and restored in 2019 as part of the archival recovery of Louise’s oeuvre—which features many films about social issues like abortion, rape, and impotence—Mädchen am Kreuz also represents the work of two other women: the film was backed by Hegewald-Film GmbH, a production company run by cinema owner turned producer and distributor Liddy Hegewald; and it was co-scripted, according to some archival sources, by writer Marie-Louise Droop, who also worked as a director and producer during the silent era.